meekness of surrender, and says:

— Then I shall wait!

Ayda starts and says vehemently: Wait? No... I will not have you wait for a term I cannot tell whether it will prove short for us or long. Go, my dear, go — and do not forget your mother's long-ing to see you 'a bridegroom...'! Go, released from every pledge and covenant. How many girls there are in God's wide world!

Mukhtar goes, only to return to pleading and refusal and entreaty on occasions to come, while Ayda holds fast to her resolve, her insistence, and her sacrifice.

And Ayda folds over the second page of the book of life, for she has been wearied by the flickerings of light dancing above a candle that burns to shed light in the eyes of others.

— 3 —

Alone, alone; a thirst in her soul and an emptiness in her heart — not regret; no, she is not regretful, and Sameh is climbing the ladder of success two and three and four rungs at a time.

But it happens sometimes that a sad feeling stirs within her.

And sad feelings live only in the corners of solitude.

Who could have reckoned that fate would intervene so mightily in her life — turning her from a road strewn with the roses of dreams, in whose skies the doves of hopes hovered in merry flight; afflicting her with this loneliness, sentencing her to this waiting, and confining her to live between home and school a monotonous life which, though duty accepted it, the seething nature of youth refuses her and will not con-sent to?!

And Mukhtar? Can he have forgotten her? Five years have passed since their engagement was broken; how often he entreated her and tried to turn her from her resolve, yet his entreaty did not prosper, nor did persuasion avail with her!

But why, one wonders, has he not married? Has he — the

successful contractor — been kept from the world of feeling by the world of money?

She wonders at his case and is perplexed by his holding back. Can he be waiting?...

She thinks it unlikely, for he no longer visits her save rarely and out of courtesy, on occasions that require his visit — Sameh's presence during a holiday, or the coming of a feast or a season.

How often she sits for hours trying to analyze his position and does not succeed, or keeps swing-ing between doubt and certainty, waking only to the insistence of the stubborn red pen, calling her to pass with it over the heaps of copybooks...

— 4 —

Good, good! Let Ayda be glad of soul and content of eye and spirit. Tomorrow he returns, and she will rest from a promise that

Mackintosh's Caramels and Chocolates

Mackintosh's 'Quality Street' (Regd.)

A Delicious Assortment of Toffees & Chocolates

John Mackintosh & Sons Ltd., Halifax

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